Crawford left him alone in his study while he went to take care of Estet. He hasn't come out since then, and I haven't heard anything.

Which, needless to say, is not like Schuldig. Normally he'd be bugging the hell out of me solely from boredom, but he hasn't come out of the room yet. I know Crawford wouldn't have been nice to him, exactly, but he let Schuldig come back, and that has to mean something, right?

I cautiously push the door to Crawford's study open, to see him just . . . sitting there. Sitting there like a drugged-out zombie, staring at the far wall. There's a certain tenseness to his shoulders that makes me think he's expecting a blow at any point. Physical or otherwise.

I've never seen him look so . . . defeated.

Since when does Schuldig look defeated?

I enter the room and shut the door quietly behind me, leaning against it, not bothering to announce my presence. He'll know I'm here.

Neither of us says anything. He stares at the wall, unblinking, and I stare at him.

"Well?" he says flatly after an eternity of silence. "Aren't you going to say something?"

I straighten and move to where I am within his line of sight.

"You're an idiot," I say.

His expression doesn't change, but something gives him away. I couldn't say what it is - maybe he flinched slightly, maybe the skin around his eyes tensed. Maybe I just know him that well.

"You shouldn't have left," I continue on without missing a beat.

He sighs, and moves for the first time since I have seen him, raising a hand to rub at his eyes. "Fuck off, Nagi," he says, and his voice conveys a bone-deep tiredness. He doesn't look at me.

I stand there for a moment more, fiddling with the edge of my grey shirt. I squash an urge to fidget, wondering whether or not to say the words that were meant to come out of my mouth when I entered here. Not the ones I did say.

"I missed you," I say softly.

Now he looks at me, and it seems like he has no shields now because I can see hope on his face. Hope, and wariness, and hurt. Things the Schuldig I know would never let through.

"I-I missed you," I say again, stammering slightly and twisting the hem of my top under his gaze. "Things were . . . things were worse with you gone," I blurt.

He still stares at me, and now I can't read the look on his face. For a minute that stretches for an hour, he says nothing, and eventually I crack and move to the door, running away from one of the few pieces of stammered evidence of my feelings.

I've almost escaped when- "Nagi?"

Slowly I turn in the doorframe, to see a sight I have prayed for ever since he left and now wonder why the hell I wanted it. He smirks at me, a familiar spark in his eyes, and says, "Thank you."

I feel a smile forming on my face, and I couldn't repress it if I tried.

Schuldig's back.

God, I missed him.